


as if, suddenly, all the stars (went out)

by TolkienGirl



Series: All That Glitters: Gold Rush!AU [75]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angband reprieve, Angst, Enlightenment-era of sorts, F/M, Falling In Love, Finrod plays matchmaker, Flashbacks, Fluff, Gen, Judaism, a series of mismatched chapters chronicling what good have been, different POVs, in the cityyy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-16
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-03-06 05:45:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 7,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18844840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TolkienGirl/pseuds/TolkienGirl
Summary: 1847, and an introduction, and everything that happened after.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the snippets and bits and bobs of the tragic Mae/OFC romance I've been hinting at! I will not be taking constructive criticism at this time or, frankly, ever.

The book in my hand is one that Maglor lent me a month ago, and I own that I am a little guilty as I climb the steps of my cousins’ home at Valinor Park. I last dined with them a week ago, when my uncle was visiting the city, and such pleasantries as literature did not seem a proper topic of conversation.

Uncle Feanor speaks of heavier and sharper things.

Still, that is no excuse for my tardy return; of late, I have not read much _literature_ at all, if only fiction and fairy-stories are meant by the word. Instead, my head has been rather turned by pamphlet frenzy, and I savor new ideas in blocky, blotted print.

“You think too much,” a schoolmaster once decried, but both Father and Grandfather Finwe have assured me it is not so.

That has its own sting.

If anything, there is more a fear in my family (I believe) that I think too _little_ ; that the sober bouts of youthful reflection I liked to count to my name have given way to the lure of glittering light and endless cheer. Since—well, I suppose since about sixteen, since my voice dropped as low as it was destined to (not very low) and I could coax my hair into some semblance of order, I have been drawn to the frippery of the ballroom, the tearoom, the society party.

I admit I love to laugh. To talk. To dance.

I pray that passing amusements do not define me.

I ring the bell and the maid answers the door. “Master Feanorian is in the parlor,” she informs me, and I expect to find Maedhros and Maglor both, lounging like cats in a patch of sun—for the day is a hot one—but instead, I find Maedhros alone.

“Finrod?”

He is in his shirtsleeves, collar undone, and there is a flush on his throat and cheeks that looks like drinking, only, it is a Saturday afternoon. Surely it is not his habit to—but I have always found it hard to reach real conclusions as to Maedhros's habits, even when we were small. Merely a year lies between us, but there is never a doubt that he is the elder. The wiser.

“Forgive my intrusion,” I say, setting the book upon a settle. “I came with Maglor's novel.”

“Udolpho?” He sounds amused, and I find myself strangely relieved, as if I was waiting for reassurance without knowing it. “It's no Dickens.”

“No it is not,” I agree. “But enjoyable all the more for it.”

“Maglor would agree with you," he laughs. “For he finds poor Charles rather tedious."

“And are you an expert in tedium,” I jest, “lazing about on this fine afternoon?”

He has a queer little smile on his lips at that, almost wry. “Not lazing, my dear. I have been reading minutes of city council meetings. But as for tedium—you are quite right. Deadly stuff.”

I suppose I would drink too, during the day, on an occasion such as this. “And Maglor, then?”

“At a garden party. Indoors...it's hot as blazes out, as you and your wilted collar know.”

“At a conservatory? Delightful.” Reading council papers must be an assignment from my uncle, to keep Maedhros from such a diversion. I know how much he honors his father's every command, no matter how full of mischief and joyous rebellion he can be.

“I shall not keep you, then,” I say, but he seizes my arm and his hand is a little clammy, though he does not look ill.

“Stay,” he insists, “and have a glass of lemonade.” He pauses. “Or something stronger."

“Maedhros, it is scarcely two o'clock!”

“Lemonade, then. Imagine yourself at a church social—there's a good fellow.”

I wait while he rings the bell. When the tall frosted glasses come, we talk of nothing, really. He drinks and smiles charmingly, with his eyes half-hooded, not quite looking at me.

“It must be strange, to have no studies to attend to.”

“None at all for me, this year,” he agrees. “Though Maglor starts in another month.”

It is on the tip of my tongue to ask why they have shortened their summer at home, but then I remember it is likely to be my uncle's private business and know I had best not interfere. I only hope Maedhros is not too unhappy to lose a month in Formenos, and then with a sudden wave of my father's intuition, I realize that unhappiness must be the cause of his Saturday drinking—for truly, it is not like him at all.

I finish my glass, the last dregs more tart than sweet. "I have joined a society."

“Not the jewelers' guild again, I trust.”

I blush and laugh. “No, no. That was an ill-fated venture for one with no talent such as myself.”

“The order of the coiffure?” His eyes twinkle.

“That had better be you,” I parry, for my cousin's lustrous hair is a thing of rare beauty. He must not have had it cut all summer; it curls against his collar and is lion-thick above his smooth brow. “No—it is nothing like that. It is...it is a gathering of young men and women who have all a common purpose.”

“The warmth of affection?” my cousin quips, and then is serious. “Finrod, do stop pacing. I shall hear you out, I swear to you, if you would but sit down.”

I did not even realize I was on my feet. “Yes, well. It is a gathering of _intellect_ , Maedhros. We speak of abolition, and the conditions of workers—of the common man, Maedhros. And the common woman, too.” Now _I_ am trying to hide my smile, for I am thinking of one woman in particular, not common at all, whom I sorely wish my cousin to meet. I cherished the plan even before I saw him wan and a little distant.

“You are always so inspiring.” He smiles just enough that his dimples prick his cheeks. “And inspired. But why tell me of this?”

That is never a question he asks of Fingon, but I am not offended. Maedhros treats me like an equal. I hope this means he hides less of his thoughts.

“I think you ought to come,” I say, and because I am my father’s son I do not feel like a prying fool, though I try to tempt a Feanorian away from his ordinary course of business. I know if Maedhros were to come he would astonish everyone with the depth of feeling and understanding that runs within him.

I do not know what would happen if he were to meet Miss Esther Landau, but I should like very much to find out.


	2. Chapter 2

_ It is extraordinary how long a man may look among the crowd without discovering the face of a friend, but it is no less true. _

“Esther,” Mrs. Woolcott says, stripping off her opera gloves, “The children are asleep, Abigail tells me. You may go.”

Hastily, Esther closes the book and slips it back to its place in the small collection of volumes on the desk. She should not feel guilty; the book and its companions are for her use. But it is hard to be seen reading so feverishly, shaping the words with her lips in the hope that they may sound more natural aloud than they did even the day before.

“Thank you, ma’am,” she offers as she stands, and she drops the slightest curtsy she can before turning away.

Yet Mrs. Woolcott, as ever, must preach her point. “As I said a week ago, you are welcome to live here. My dear, I  _ must _ dislike the idea of a young lady keeping her own room in this dreadful, wild city. I dislike it very much indeed.”

This is a conversation that Esther has endured six times at least since the start of her employ, two months earlier; now, she is not sure  _ what _ she can say to appease Mrs. Woolcott’s worries. 

In truth, she wishes to say nothing at all.

“I lock my door firmly,” she says, “And have my cat for company. The family downstairs is very--”

“A cat?”

“Yes, ma’am. I find he is most useful about the...the mice.”

Mrs. Woolcott nearly faints in horror, so Esther decides not to tell her of a grey intruder she shooed out of the parlor with a dustpan earlier that morning.

 

Esther’s quarters front on Vesey street, a room three flights up, and if her mother and sisters believe otherwise, she prays that the lie be forgiven. She could not bear to be trapped in the governess’s chambers at the Woolcott’s, without a moment to call her own. And anyway, she is not strictly a governess: she is a tutor, even if she is still learning herself.

_ Your accent _ , Mrs. Woolcott marveled,  _ is as heavy as lead. But--the boys  _ are  _ learning. _

That, and if she lived anywhere but alone, she would not be able to keep the kind of company she craves. 

If she brings a waistcoat or two with her tonight, and if she  _ finishes _ them rather than talking with her hands, as she is wont to do--yes, yes. She can justify it. 

Once at home, with the door locked, she opens her window. She always it keeps it so while she sketches out the next day’s German lesson, for a breeze is better than close air, even with the smells of the street stinging her nose. She burns a candle for that, and Kröte keeps watch for anything that might creep over the ledge, purring throatily.

On her desk, beside the lesson papers (precious things that she must not blot, if at all possible), there is a letter, twice read-over. It is, of course, from Mater. It speaks as those that have come before it, just as Esther feared.

_ There is fighting in the city, and riots. News reaches even us. I worry over Otto when weeks and months pass without his visits. My darling, he believes we shall have a better future, but I do not want his future, nor yours. Forgive your old mother for ingratitude. It is only that I wish to stay exactly where I am. _

Before Esther sailed away in springtime, with a steamer trunk, an old coat, and a new hat, Uncle Otto kissed her cheeks and promised to keep Mater safe. “She will need every penny you can spare,” he said, “But leave the convincing to me. Between us, we shall see her in America at last.”

At the time, Esther was grateful that he did not protest the rarity, the scandal, of a young woman not quite twenty traveling alone to a new and (many said) evil country. Now, she wishes Uncle Otto would not be  _ quite _ so eccentric--wishes he would not be the sort to join in riots rather than the sort to avoid them.

Is it selfish, to keep her little room?

(A drop of ink spots the paper.)

But no--she pays  _ so _ little for it, taking on work from the tailor landlord and laboring with needle and thread in the wee hours of the night. The Woolcotts were friends of a business acquaintance of Uncle Otto’s, and have been...well, at least they have been kind. Surely she does not delay Mater and Emmi and Greta’s coming, by merely  _ living _ . 

_ And I must  _ think _ , to live _ .

Resolute in gesture if not in mind, she folds Mother’s letter up, scratches Kröte between his grey-smudged ears, and finishes her lesson on verbs. Charles and Edward are mischievous students, but she has heard their pronunciation improve this past month, though they are really still too early on for conjugation.

The lesson on verbs was a request from Mr. Woolcott.

_ Are they not speaking it yet?  _ he asked, with a great many lines on his square forehead.  _ How long does it take, to learn a few ‘achs’ and ‘meins’? _

Esther bit her tongue at his ignorance, and realized that her tongue was often sore.

 

She first encountered Finrod Felagund on a street corner, where he was earnestly distributing pamphlets--an occupation that seemed ill-suited to his silk hat and neat gloves.

“You are smearing ink on those,” Esther pointed out, for her days of milking cows at home and reading newspapers from Berlin and Paris at all hours of the night had taught her bluntness and a knowledge of stains. 

“So I am,” he assented, examining them with a smile more amused than distressed. “Shame on me. Can I interest you in one?”

Esther took the pamphlet from his spotted, kid-clad fingers.  _ Abolition: Law of the Land _ was printed on it in block letters. She felt as if it burned her hand, and she looked around cautiously. Even here, in the American North, opinions were hardly fixed--though hers were.

“Do you not expect a drubbing? Inviting argument on the corner?”

“At noon?” He grinned. “None I can’t manage. I encourage you to read this, ma’am. Ideas are the beginning of everything, including freedom.”

“I agree.” She opened it then and there, and was at once transfixed by the crude woodcuts, the harsh words. 

“If this is to your liking--” He smiled again, and lifted the brim of his hat. “I am very forward, without even my name. It is Finrod, Finrod Felagund. My name, I mean. I attend a small gathering at the Quaker meeting house, Tuesday and Thursday evenings--we discuss matters such as these.”

Esther narrowed her eyes.

“I know it sounds distrustworthy, so you needn’t come--but you’re the first person to stop and speak to me for more than a moment. Certainly the first person to become so engrossed with reading that she did not notice the pigeon pecking at her shoe.”

Esther glanced down. The pigeon scuttled away.

“You accept women at this gathering?” she inquired. 

“Gladly.”

“That does sound distrustworthy.”

He laughed. “Fair enough. Ten o’clock in the evening--the meetinghouse on Warren Street. I hope to see you there.”

 

And so it had come to pass, for four weeks now--and though some of the others were bores, and some liked Jews as little as they liked women, Finrod was soon becoming a fast friend.

He was handsome and utterly charming, sincere and engaging, and he talked with his hands so that she didn’t have to, stitching seams in coats and waistcoats and trousers as she so often was.

If only  _ he _ was Jewish, Esther might have felt obliged to fall in love with him. But he wasn’t, and she wasn’t. 

Perhaps she was not meant for love. Pennies were sooner saved without it, and Esther did not mind.

 

“There is a robust intellectual movement in Germany,” Finrod said one evening--it was almost the first time he had brought up her home-country, though she knew her way of speaking gave her away at once. She did not hesitate so much over the words, but they would not fit right between her teeth. Some of the others likely snickered over it; the little seamstress with the leaden accent and the bold convictions. 

“My father was part of the Haskalah,” Esther answers, “And perhaps I inherited my love of understanding from him.”

“But?” Master Felagund seems to anticipate that a qualification is coming.

“There is not much place in the Haskalah for women.”  _ There is not much place in America for women, either, but we do what we can. _ “So I have luck, here.”

Finrod lifted an eyebrow. “You believe in luck?”

“No. It is only a word.” Esther turned the collar in her hand around. Her stitches were never crooked, but that made them no less tiresome to complete.

 

(Perhaps she was not meant for love.)

 

“This is my cousin, Maedhros Feanorian,” Finrod announces, and Esther crumples the waistcoat in her hands.


	3. Chapter 3

Finrod has dreadful taste in cousins.

Esther reflects on this, stitches growing fiercer by the moment, and is increasingly convinced of it.

Maedhros Feanorian has commandeered both conversation and company, turning a usually sober gathering into a far more riotous one.

The gentlemen are clamoring to assure him of their feats at fencing and horse-racing, two pursuits at which he apparently excels, and the ladies have become positively silly. Finrod is laughing and sharing freely of the port wine, and all in all, Esther scarcely recognizes the room.

Finrod is eighteen, and his cousin looks not much older. He is, however, _grander--_ broad-shouldered but lean-hipped, with every muscle that...horse-racing, or what have you, has hardened in his legs displayed by too-careful tailoring.

Esther realizes belatedly that she has permitted a rather unholy thought, and becomes angrier still.

Maedhros Feanorian tosses his red lion-mane--how came he by that radiant color? Honestly?--and meets her gaze.

Esther holds it stonily, until he smiles, dimples deep, and looks away.

He seems like a boy, and she, with her evenings of vigorous thought hard-won, has no use for boys. The few other young women she has encountered here had appeared to be sensible enough--gentlemen's daughters, but eager to learn more than dance-cards and embroidery. And now their heads are quite turned.

Even when the conversation shifts to literature, Esther is not really appeased.

Too much of the night has been wasted. Ordinarily she has only to bear the pique of those who think she has no place here, though that has become easier since the arrival of Lucy and Alice. Now she has to curse herself for secret feminine flutterings, and everyone else for their easily swayed resolve.

 _We gathered to talk of ideas_ , she thinks helplessly. _To confront a need for change._

Instead--this!

Her waistcoats are finished and the party is dispersing. Finrod is making merry with his cousin and Esther steps to the narrow entryway of the meeting-house to fetch her cloak.

Its collar is snagged.

A graceful, beringed hand stretches over her shoulder and nimbly unhooks it for her. She turns, half crushed against the other coats in her brief affright, to find herself face to face with Finrod's awful cousin.

"Beg pardon, miss," he murmurs, deceptively shy but for the twinkle in eyes that, this close, she can see are sharply grey. "This is yours?"

She snatches it from his grasp, and is surprised to see hard callouses on the palms of his lazy hands. This puts her in danger of gaping, so she steps out of his reach and fastens the offending cloak around her shoulders.

"Pray let me accompany you," Maedhros Feanorian offers, when she has muttered a perfunctory goodnight. "It is dangerous to go alone in the dark."

His smooth voice, still unfamiliar, has made her conscious yet again of the weight of her accent. He sounds vaguely Irish, but the mellow lilt does not hinder him. Far from it.

Though others are still lingering, she has made it plain that she intends to leave and cannot go back on that now. That leaves only one alternative: outright refusal. "Thank you," Esther says coldly, and oh, how she misses the ease with which she might crush him in _Deutsch!_  "I am quite confident in my own wits."

"Thus why I asked," he says, voice a drawl but eyes, when he comes round to her side, all sincerity. "I'm worried for my _own_  safety."

Esther can feel her cheeks flushing. "Are you mocking me?"

"No indeed, miss. I'm much too cowed." But the dimples are hovering.

"You are a great, tall man and I cannot stop you," she concedes bitterly, and opens the door herself, before he can reach it.

 

Esther expects the full weight of his charm to be turned upon her as soon as they reach the street, but he is strangely quiet, tucking his gold-headed cane beneath his arm and busying himself with tugging his fine silk gloves over those curiously rough hands.

"Which way is it?" Esther asks at last. Her tone is not quite as impatient as she intended it to be.

"Which way?" His brows lift in quaint confusion.

"To your home?"

"To my home? But I thought--"

"Master Feanorian," Esther says sweetly, "You told me that you were too afraid to walk alone in the dark. I am taking you home. Is that not our bargain?"

He blushes. "You have caught me." 

"I did not want to catch you," she answers.

"What do you want?" He stops short and turns to her, eyes narrowed as if he is thinking hard. "You seemed unhappy at Finrod's meeting...did it not interest you? Did you come there only to sew?"

"I came there," Esther snaps, "as I always do. To learn, and to seek a little freedom from my daily life. And tonight it was a shallow social party!"

He smiles, too brightly. "The point is taken. I shall not come again."

Esther bites her tongue. Mater would be horrified, by such rudeness to a young man. Esther is suddenly horrified by such rudeness to another person, man or not.

"Excuse me," she murmurs. "I...I am in bad temper. Please do not be offended."

He tips his hat, that terrible brightness gone. "I have six younger brothers, miss. It is quite difficult to offend me."

She does not think that is true, but she settles for, "Please come again," though surely she does not mean it.

"Hmm." He has once more stopped walking, and leans upon his cane. He is very tall. "I shan't. You have thoroughly chastened me."

"Oh, my opinion does not  _matter,"_ Esther cries, truly mortified. "Your cousin invited me and you also. Listen to him."

"But do you know," Maedhros says reflectively, "I think your opinion  _should_ matter to me."

"Then believe that I want you to come." There, will that satisfy him?

He looks suddenly very young, especially about the eyes and mouth. "May I?" he asks softly.

"What?"

"May I believe that?"

"Yes," Esther answers...and somehow, she means it.

"You cannot rescind it now _,_ " he crows, and stepping into the street in a dancer's flourish of movement, he whistles for a cab.

"Master Feanorian," Esther protests, but it is too late--here is the clatter of hooves.

"Take the lady home," her companion orders, supplementing the command with his purse.

His hand is warm and strong under hers as he helps her up.

Esther stares at her own hand, transfixed, as the cab rumbles away.

Finrod has much to answer for.


	4. Chapter 4

Whenever both Fingon and I have a spare evening to ourselves, we are wont to trip over to our cousins' home in Valinor Park.

It is my uncle's house, I know, but he does not make it a welcoming place as Maedhros does. We have had many a fine revelry there, plied with plum-cakes and French pastries (for Maedhros has coaxed the cook into that expertise), growing warm with wine and stronger stuff. The stronger stuff is uniformly some opulent gift from Grandfather Finwe to his eldest grandson, and we all praise his generosity before offending Maglor with our boisterous parlor games.

Today, I am early. No doubt Fingon is still busy with his schoolbooks. I feel a twinge of guilty admiration for his self-application; he may be the baby of our company, younger than Maedhros by three years, but he has ambitions beyond any of us.

(Maglor might protest this point.)

Maglor is playing on the piano when I arrive, and he calls my name in greeting but does not slow his _rondo._ I take the stairsteps two at a time (stair-racing, I am ever reminded, is a drunken game that nearly gave Maedhros and me a fine pair of broken necks, or so Fingon hysterically declaimed).

Maedhros's room is at the end of the hall. Since he is not dogged by Maglor's creative ghosts, his room is never in disarray. Maglor tends to fling books and clothes about in fits of piqued genius, though I own him to be fully capable of being particular in housekeeping matters when the mood takes him.

Yet I am all wrong today. Maedhros's door stands open, and through it I can see that every shirt and coat and trouser he owns is tossed haphazardly on bed and desk and floor.

In the center of the chaos, my cousin himself stands, clad in nothing but an immaculately tailored pair of riding breeches. His chest and shoulders reveal his upkeep of the muscles enviably defined by Formenos farm-work. Maedhros may play much at cards and drink much liquor, but he has not a true fop's softness.

I clear my throat.

"Finrod, you absolute devil," is his frantic greeting. "This is your fault, all of it. Come in, come in."

I am tongue-tied-- _for once,_ I can almost hear Uncle Fingolfin remark dryly--and I as do as he bids. As he turns, I am favored by a new sight--a fresh-inked anchor emblazoned on his left shoulder.

At that, my shock finds words. "Is that--is that a tattoo?"

Maedhros is momentarily distracted from whatever is causing him such uncharacteristic distress, and flashes a wicked grin at me. "Isn't it grand?"

"Grand?" I splutter, for I...I am not sure what to make of it; of my cousin's fair skin, stained deep blue forever. It is still tinged red and tender at the edges; still fresh.

"I shall give you five dollars," he offers glibly, "If you can guess who has its match."

"Maglor?"

He laughs. "No, no. Now, Finrod. Answer for your wrongs."

"My wrongs?"

He stoops and lifts a tailored coat. "The dark green or the dove grey?"

"The blue," I say, at once diverted, though I have far more questions than answers in mind. There is a powder-blue coat I have seen him wear to great advantage, draped over the back of his chair.

"You're brilliant." He beams, and lifts it from its slightly more dignified place to inspect it with a practiced eye.

"It will not make you look finer than you did when we tried to squeeze into Grandmother's corsets," I tease, "But what could surpass _that?"_

Maedhros laughs. Downstairs, the piano has ceased its gentle melody.

"What is all this for?" I mean the coat, and the room, and his distracted air and giddy accusations.

"I was quite taken with your earnest little society, Finrod." His fingers rake his hair back and he lays the coat aside. "Lord, I should be wearing a shirt, shouldn't I?"

"My--little society?" _Can_ this be about Esther? But they scarcely exchanged a word, much to my dismay!

"Indeed. It's endlessly charming, and all for good causes, too--not that my head can be charged with following each and every labyrinthine thread." He smiles through his eyelashes, almost shyly. "I thought to call, this evening, on the proprietors of a proper club, to see if they would permit one of their rooms for your use..."

He seems intent on shocking me, this day. I shall have to discuss it with Father, later, and sort out the whole of it. This doesn't seem to be a _secret_ \--only a fascination I do not understand. "You want our meeting to leave the Quakers and go elsewhere?"

"I thought a place with some good food and drink would not go amiss." Maedhros has found a shirt at last, and he slips it on just as Maglor mounts the stairs.

"Has Maitimo told you about her yet?" Maglor demands in a bored tone. "His latest conquest, whose winsome wiles are enough to drive him to madness?"

I lift my eyebrows in a manner which I hope rivals the Feanorians and return my gaze to Maedhros. His cheeks are as red as his hair.

"Is this really," I ask, with my best (too-high-pitched) approximation of our Grandfather's grave voice, "About the Quakers?"

The doorbell--or to be more exact, Fingon--saves him from answering.


	5. Chapter 5

Despite his resolve, Maedhros has no opportunity to rejoin Finrod's society for a fortnight. He was not sent early to the city for jest. Athair desires him to begin attending council meetings with Grandfather--at least those open to the public--and insists on him becoming an expert in the history of Manwe Sulimo, mayor of the city.

Manwe is a study in dull politics, in both life and leadership, except for the knowledge Maedhros has long had from Athair's own mouth.

 _That,_ indeed, is knowledge he would rather forget.

 _That villain_...

It does not matter, what Maedhros thinks or feels. Athair has given him his orders. Moreover, Grandfather is eager also that Maedhros should follow in his footsteps, what with his retirement only a month off. Sometimes it is difficult to discern whose intent governs whose, but Maedhros's money lies on Athair guiding Grandfather as surely as he guides his sons.

The idea of succession is enough to make Maedhros's blood run cold, to wish (as he sometimes does, quite pathetically) that he was not the eldest of all. The eldest of _Athair's_.

_But does Athair want me to remain here always? Even after Maglor is finished with his schooling--_

"Maitimo," Maglor says softly, settling his hands on Maedhros's shoulders and rubbing the tense muscles there. "Did you even sleep last night?"

"Did you?" Maedhros relaxes against the touch, his head lolling back against Maglor's waistcoat so that he can meet his brother's gaze (albeit upside-down). "I could have sworn I heard some rather tortured Beethoven." He did not sleep last night for more than an hour, hunched over his desk.

He drank a little.

(More than a little.)

"Tortured?" Maglor's lips thin, displeased.

"In spirit, dear, not in form." Maedhros stares down at his notes. Not that he will say as much to Maglor or anyone, but the night was a bad one for the sake of a name.

Manwe's surname, long ago, was also Bauglir.

 _No news is not always good news_ , Athair warned. _You and I have both heard nothing, these four years_. _That, I dislike. The closer we can watch the brother, the better._

Maedhros's shoulders shake with a yawn. Maglor chuckles.

"There's the answer to my first question."

"Aye, fair enough. What's the second?"

"I almost think I should not ask it."

Sometimes Maglor teases and evades as much as Athair does. Maedhros does not mind; when Athair is so playful, it means he is content. "Macalaure, I shall not rest until you do."

Maglor lifts one hand from Maedhros's shoulder, no doubt to stifle a yawn of his own. "Finrod has invited us to a soiree."

Maedhros's mind is not incapable of quick thought, even when he is tired, as he is now. Most of the parties they attend jointly with their cousin are larger affairs than Uncle Finarfin's home could hold. If Finrod has staged a soiree, it is an intimate gathering. And if it is a soiree, and not merely a tete-a-tete of cousins...he must have some gleeful underlying purpose, just as he had when he invited Maedhros to--

Maedhros presses his knuckles against his lips, pretending to concentrate on the papers he has toiled over, but in truth, his mind is drifting far afield. He _has_ thought of Esther Landau more often than not these days. Maybe it is boyish weakness; maybe it is an attempt to shirk Athair's assigned responsibilities, Grandfather Finwe's future hopes.

Or maybe he cannot help but be charmed by a girl who does not remind him of anyone he knows.

"Is it this evening?" he asks, thinking of the resolute curve of her chin for no particular reason.

"It is." Maglor's eyes sparkle.

He shouldn't have told Maglor about Esther, though he did not call her by name in the telling. Maglor is acting no differently than he does whenever Maedhros finds himself a little in love, after one chance meeting or five. In sum: Maglor rhapsodizes and jibes until Maedhros moves (in Maglor's view) too quickly. 

Then he withdraws, and chides.

The chiding is rather entertaining, or would be, did not Maedhros sometimes worry that it is merited.

Ah, but that is Mother's influence, and Mother is not here.

His current interest is not an easy one to explain. Esther is not beautiful in the ways that society had taught Maedhros to look for beauty. She is not blonde and buxom, with a rosebud for a mouth and eyes tinted china-blue. Still, if there is any of Mother's artist in him, it is an artist of swift decision: _here_ is something lovely, in spirit and aspect.

 _Here_ is someone he must know better.

Finrod often worries that he (Finrod) is shallow. Maedhros assures him in one breath that it is not so, and in another breath (a held breath) fears that Finrod shall soon discover how much _more_ likely it is that Maedhros is devoid of depth.

Is Esther a hope at depth?

 _Don't be a fool_. _You haven't a hope for anything._

He met her once and she scorned him. 

He met her once and wishes to see her again.

"Send Finrod our acceptance," Maedhros says, shuffling his notes carefully together. He shall wear the powder-blue coat tonight, of Finrod's own recommendation, and see if it brings him luck.


	6. Chapter 6

Finrod Felagund is wealthy. Esther knew this instinctively when first she saw him, but the impression had softened while he sat on hardback chairs, gesturing eagerly and claiming to feel for the plight of laborers.

She does not doubt his sincerity, exactly, but two uneasy sentiments twist in her breast: first, that his interest in broader troubles than his own is faddish, and second, that even if that is not so, her coming tonight was a mistake.

Esther wears her best dress, and it is not even as fine as the lace curtain that festoons the door she entered.

Entered, only after a French housemaid had invited her. Esther speaks French almost as well as German—perhaps more naturally than she speaks English—but that, too, seems to place her among servants rather than guests. The last two meetings of the conversational society (only one of which she could attend) were in the private parlor of a public house, much more comfortable than the Quaker meeting room. That parlor was no equal to Finrod’s own home.

No, she should not have come.

“You must be one of my brother’s strange friends.”

Esther whirls, and realizes that the voice is speaking from behind an even more impressive curtain, this one of rose velvet. An instant later, a yellow head appears, followed by a nimble body.

The girl is as tall as Esther, but much younger.

“I am Galadriel,” the girl says, extending her hand. “Well, properly I am known as Artanis, but I don’t like to be proper. Do you?”

“Not always,” Esther admits, to her own immediate horror. “I...I am sorry. Good to—I am pleased to—my name is Esther Landau.”

A sweet, fierce smile appears and disappears on Galadriel’s face. “Very good,” she says. “The others will be here soon. I ought not to be here at all—I promised Mama I would stay upstairs—but I had to meet  _you_.”

Esther has no time to inquire further. Galadriel waves her hand coyly, and dances away, her hair shining in the candlelight.

There are voices in the corridor. Finrod, dressed for something much too fine in low polished shoes and a brilliant grass-green coat, greets her affably.

“Esther! So someone keeps the hour of my invitation. I am honored. Mother, may I present Miss Esther Landau?”

_ Mother _  is a woman with Finrod’s golden smile and hair so fine and white-blonde it makes her look like a stained-glass angel in a Catholic church.

“My dear, I play hostess to my irrepressibly sociable eldest tonight. How delightful to meet you.”

Esther curtseys—she knows how to manage  _that_ , at least—and as she rises, Finrod says,

“We’ll make ten couple tonight, I hope.”

“Ten couple?”

“For dancing!”

Esther should have expected this, but she stands quite shocked. She  _can_  dance, but all she knows are country dances. Nothing suitable for grass-green silk. And ten couple? Her head swims at the prospect of being dowdy before twenty spangled butterflies...none of their scorn held at bay by her reasoned positions on Darwin or Descartes or Voltaire.

Not that Finrod is scornful. Wealthy and faddish or not, he  _is_  kind.

“Maedhros!” he cheers now, looking over Esther’s head and down the hall.

Esther’s heart sinks lower still.

Maedhros Feanorian...ignores her. Oh, he bows, dazzling the very walls themselves with the contrast of his copper hair and pale blue coat. Every line of him—not that Esther was in danger of forgetting—is slim and young, made imposing by his height and the lazy ripple of his shoulders and legs as he moves.

He does not speak to her for an hour after greeting her.

Esther fumes. She isn’t sure why—there is no respectable  _reason_ —but even Finrod’s friendly attentions cannot lift her from a black mood that has nothing to do with the arrival of more finery-draped dancers.

Has she ceased to care what people think of her? Or has she become suddenly, foolishly obsessed with what a single person thinks of her?

There are little glasses of wine that Esther does not know the English name for, if English names there are. There are tiny sandwiches and tinier cakes and delicate ices.

Finrod is charmingly proud of all of it.

Esther scrapes her spoon against the frilled glass and tries to divorce her previous experience with Maedhros Feanorian from any whisper of significance.

The floor of one long room is bereft of its carpets. A very young man with Maedhros’s eyes (not quite) and something of the same bones  (if not the same height) lifts a fiddle to his ear.

Esther supposes she should bury her frustrations in another ice.

“Miss Landau,” drawls a voice that blurs the lilt of Ireland with the elegant casing of city schooling, “would you give me the honor of this dance?”

She whirls, and there he is, so tall, so close, that she must look at him and venture to find some hint of the same indefinable longing that made her seek a bit of patience in herself at their last meeting.

She feels no  _patience_  now.

Mindful that her mastery of his tongue will sound quite rough because of her nerves, she says, “Sir, you do not want to dance with me, I think.”

“I assure you I have had no other thought all evening.”

Esther raises her eyebrows. Mater would warn against this expression, and indeed the outbursts that generally follow it, but Mater is not here. “You have not spoken to me!”

A dimple emerges and vanishes. “I was working up the courage.”

“You were...” she sorts about for the word. “Teasing me.”

He lays one well-shaped hand, heavily beringed, flat against his chest. “Saints no! That would be shocking of me. And besides, that would mean I have  _grounds_  to tease you, which we both know I do not.” But the dimples are deepening and she  _knows_ something else entirely.

“You have more power to turn your words.” She presses her lips together and goes to move away, but his hand darts out, hovering over her arm without touching her.

“Esther—Miss Landau—”

“It’s Esther now, is it?”

“I beg your pardon, that’s only how I think—” The tips of his ears turn red. This, at least, is a gratifying discovery. Esther is suddenly brought home to her innocent sisters, or to the (not unpleasant) moments when she has caught her small tutoring charges sketching pirates in the margins of their books instead of studying.

Spurred by sudden superior boldness, she extends her hand. “You think of me? Then tell me more, while we dance.”

His grin is overpowering, but she has resolved not to be overpowered.

There are more than ten couples on the floor—Finrod should be pleased.

“I’ll kill Maglor if he plays a polka,” Maedhros confides from his great height. “He’s my brother; I am allowed to say that.”

Esther wants to inquire about his family more, for family is something she understands, but then the music soars as if it is drawn from more than one instrument.

It isn’t a polka. It’s a waltz, which Esther knows well enough from home, but which she was led to understand was not quite proper in England and the States.

“Is this—decent?”

Maedhros’s brow furrows, and then he laughs, “My dear Miss Landau, you mistake us by thirty years at least. We are a very decorous set; the waltz is inevitable.”

Whatever retort was on her lips is lost to the gasp in her throat as one of his hands settles firmly against her waist and the other laces long, gloved fingers through hers.

“Did I hurt you?” He asks softly.

“No.” She is blushing furiously, and thus also furious.

“Nervous, then?”

That is one word for it. 

“This is unfair,” Esther blurts.

He lifts his eyebrows. “Unfair?”

_ That you can look as you do, and unsettle me as you do, when I have not spoken with you above a few hours.  _

“Nevermind.”

“I have disappointed you again,” he says, with a rueful sigh. “Please, scold me if you must. It will teach me about you.”

“There it is,” she says. “You—I cannot know if you mock me or not.” 

“I am not mocking you.” He turns her outwards so that her skirt fans like a much finer thing, and when her face is opposite his again, she finds his expression very grave. “I am only bad at seeming sincere.”

“Then talk to me as you would your brother.”

That isn’t what she wants, exactly—it is not a charming thing for a woman to say—but she forgets her own awkwardness when his smile reappears.

“Which brother?”

“How many have you?”

“Six.”

“I have only sisters,” Esther admits, as green silk flashes by. “They are still in my country.”

“Tell me about them,” Maedhros murmurs, as he pulls her a little closer.

Afterwards, she will count that as the moment she fell in love. 


	7. Chapter 7

Finwe has made many mistakes in life, but this, he is sure, is not one of them: sharing a comfortable cup of brandy with his eldest grandson--the one who reminds him most of himself.

How hard it was, and is, to resist the charming affection of Maedhros's smile. As a little boy his eyes darted everywhere as soon as he entered a room, and then were wont to settle on the face of one whom he loved dearly.

A single look from Maedhros, quietly rapturous, was the equal of an enthusiastic baby-kiss from another child.

Maedhros is distracted today. He sips his drink more slowly than usual, and a slight, secretive smile plays at the corners of his lips.

Finwe is not displeased; happy distraction is all he hopes for these dear young people, perhaps particularly for the two grand-sons only lately discharged from his care.

 _They are old enough to look after themselves, Athair,_ Feanor said earnestly. _I swear they shall still be more attentive to you than any other_.

Finwe had not argued. When it came to his eldest son's management of his own family, what could he do but trust Feanor's determined judgment? Even in the dreadful year when silence and absence spoke alone for that judgment--

"Maedhros," Finwe says gently, for they are lately come from a council meeting and have yet to discuss it in depth, "What glad thought or memory consumes you?"

Maedhros blushes instantly, a change starkly visible against his fair freckled cheeks. He is nineteen; only a boy.

Finwe remembers himself at that age. Remembers the delicate invincibility of youth.

"I had good luck on the fencing court, that as all," Maedhros says dismissively. He is lying; Finwe is quite sure that he can recognize the rare occasions of Maedhros's falsehoods. "Forgive me. You were talking of the dispute with the overseer of the new cathedral."

Finwe pauses. In a week's time, they shall journey north to Formenos, that his retirement may be fêted in Feanor's smile. The carriage ride will allow plenty of time for dull talk. This, instead, seems like a moment not to miss.

He reaches across the small table to lay one hand tenderly against Maedhros's cheek. The soft skin is warm and living and precious. Does Feanor ever do this? Does he glory in the perfection of his sons?

Of course he does; he must.

"My boy," Finwe says softly, not speaking of fencing at all, "I am happy for you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It turned out that this is but the first stage of a mysterious relationship that we all know ended badly. No doubt more shall eventually be revealed!


End file.
